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Posters above the bar from David Bowie's Aladdin Sane to The Who and The Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten (Image: Graham Young)

People like Bowie, Jagger, Hendrix, The Beatles and The Who, not forgetting the Gallagher brothers from Oasis who used to play the long-closed Jug of Ale in Moseley.

Part of the venue’s considerable charm that it’s a place to be discovered – and that its history doesn’t appear to be written in stone.

The suggestion is that it was built around 1968 – the same year Black Sabbath played their first gig at The Crown, which has been closed in Station Street for three years now – and that it became a live music venue more than 25 years ago in the 1980s.

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Originally known as The Longboat it is believed the canalside pub became The Flapper and Firkin in 1993 and that it changed to The Flapper a decade ago in 2007.

What is unquestionable is how pretty its location is next to the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal.

Step down into the beer garden to enjoy a tranquil view of the BT Tower beyond moored narrowboats and you are taken into a very different world than the commercial heart of Birmingham just a mile away.

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A door covered in band stickers leading into the live music room at The Flapper (Image: Nick Wilkinson)

Standing tall like guardians over The Flapper, are the four tower blocks of the neighbouring Civic Centre – whose residents face 15 months of building work if the plan to replace the pub with a 66-flat apartment building goes ahead.

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Downstairs is where the music happens

View from the stage at The Flapper (Image: Nick Wilkinson)

The door to the live venue is festooned with stickers from bands down the years.

One of its busiest recent days came in May when Iron Maiden played at the Barclaycard Arena – earlier that evening scores of fans had first drunk 14 barrels of associated Trooper beer at the Flapper and been photographed enjoying themselves outside.

A sign on the mirror over the staircase which goes down to the live music room bears an inscription with a twist which now reflects the future fate of the building itself.

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Otherwise, The Flapper looks set to follow Mothers, Burberries, The Crown, The Railway, Jug O’Punch, The Yardbird, The Golden Eagle, Barbarella’s, The Cedar Club, The Rum Runner, Edwards, Bingley Hall, Breedon Bar, Jug of Ale, Powerhouse and even the New Street Odeon into Birmingham’s brilliant but increasingly lost music history.